


castle on a cloud

by bobmcjoe



Category: The Dark Artifices Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare, The Wicked Powers Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Angst, Family, Gen, post qoaad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-06 01:52:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17336441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobmcjoe/pseuds/bobmcjoe
Summary: "No, I want to see." The words left his mouth before Kit's mind could catch up. "Please," he added, almost desperately.An undecipherable look flitted across Tessa's face. "Very well," she said, squeezing his hand before pushing back her chair and standing up. "Tell me when you want me to Change back."In which Tessa Changes into Rosemary Herondale.





	castle on a cloud

**Author's Note:**

> i think i will change baby carstairs' name once we learn it (:

The moment Kit came down to breakfast, he knew something was up. 

For one thing, Tessa and Jem abruptly stopped talking when he came in, their mouths closing with an audible click. "Good morning to you too," he said, raising his eyebrows. "What's up?"

Tessa and Jem exchanged one of their married couple looks. They were totally hiding something. "The sky," Jem said neutrally.

This time Kit and Tessa exchanged one of their Jem-is-making-bad-jokes-again looks. "You need to stop." Kit shook his head in mock disgust. "Just because you're a dad now it doesn't mean that you have to make terrible dad jokes."

Baby Carstairs babbled something in agreement and flung a spoonful of applesauce at Jem. A gloop of apples slid down his cheek. Kit squeezed her cheeks lightly and kissed her hair. "Clever girl," he smiled proudly. She wiggled happily in her high chair. Jem tried to frown his disapproval but the edges of his smile were already starting to creep over his lips.

"So what's going on?" Jem's pitiful attempt at a joke was obviously a ploy to distract Kit from whatever they had been talking about.

"Actually, there is something I've been meaning to say to you, Kit," Tessa said nervously. "I mean, it's more like to show you, and if you would prefer I don't show you that would be okay too, but I'd just like you to know that the offer is there, though you can reject it if you so wish." She was rambling, which meant something was definitely up. Kit always thought that Tessa had a stately air about her, whether it was innate or whether it had been cultivated by the wisdom of years, he did not know. But he did know that Tessa hardly ever rambled, so whatever she wanted to say was probably very important.

"来吧，小宝贝，爸爸带你去花园玩，好不好?" Jem scooped her up in his arms and blew a little raspberry on her stomach, causing her to erupt into giggles. She beamed widely up at her father and Kit felt his heart melt at the pure joy on her face. Jem exchanged a meaningful glance with Tessa before nodding encouragingly at Kit, carrying the baby out the back door.

So now Kit was left alone in the kitchen with a rather somber looking Tessa. He sat down at the table and ran his fingers over the smooth wood of the kitchen table as he waited for Tessa to speak. Maybe she was pregnant and he was going to get another little sibling. Though if that were the case, Jem would be here too, and Tessa would have no reason to be nervous, since they all knew how much he adored Baby Carstairs.

Tessa took a deep breath, leaning forward to place her palms flat on the table. "We have, I mean, Jem and I have told you the story about what happened with your mother." Oh. A strange feeling overcame Kit. Shortly after he followed them to Devon, they had sat him down at this kitchen table and told him about Rosemary Herondale, his mother, and how she had left to keep him safe, how the Riders had hunted for her life and blood. How she had died asking them to protect her son. His hand froze on the table, clenching into a fist.

"So, the thing is, I have an unusual ability. Simply put, I can Change into somebody else as long as I am touching an object that belongs to them," Tessa continued, glancing at Kit's face. 

Kit blinked in surprise. Okay... This wasn't the weirdest thing he'd heard of. But why only tell him now? What did it have to do with his mother?

As if she could read his mind, she said, "I'm really sorry I didn't tell you earlier. While I was pregnant, I was unable to Change, and things have been rather hectic until just recently." She gave a small laugh.

"It's okay, don't worry about it," he replied. "But what does this have to do with my mother? We don't have any of her belongings." The heron pendant technically belonged to his mother, but Kit had been wearing it for over a year now, so it probably wasn't considered wholly his mother's anymore. And Kit definitely did not want to see Tessa accidentally turn into himself. That would be weird.

"I've actually, um, Changed into her before. When Jem and I were looking for you." She paused, searching Kit's face worriedly. He tried not to let anything show. She took another deep breath. "So I can Change into her again. If you would like to see her."

Kit heard himself suck in a breath. What Tessa was offering was something that he'd only ever dreamed of. He could see his mother. His mother, whose face he had long forgotten, whose voice was nothing but a vague memory he could chase only in his dreams. He could meet the woman who had given life to him, who, according to Tessa and Jem, given up her whole life and happiness for the smallest chance that he would survive and grow up happily.

But would he be able to handle it? To see his dead mother, knowing that it was only an illusion, that it was really just Tessa in a disguise? To see his dead mother, and then part with her again? Was it better to remain ignorant? He didn't want to feel the pain of losing a parent again. 

For a moment, Kit almost hated Tessa for tempting him with this choice. It felt too cruel to dangle in front of him what could have been. If his mother had stayed, would both his parents be alive now? Would he have had a normal childhood? Would they have been a happily perfect family, like Tessa and Jem and Baby Carstairs?

Tessa must have seen the conflict on his face, for she reached across the table and put her hand over his in a tender, motherly gesture. "I apologise. I shouldn't have burdened you with this. I thought you ought to have the right to know," she said. The look on her face was soft and sad, and though outwardly she looked barely twenty, her expression held the kind of pain and love that could only come with being a parent. "You can take your time with this. I'll always be here for you if you need me."

"No, I want to see." The words left his mouth before Kit's mind could catch up. "Please," he added, almost desperately.

An undecipherable look flitted across Tessa's face. "Very well," she said, squeezing his hand before pushing back her chair and standing up. "Tell me when you want me to Change back."

Kit nodded, heart in his throat as he watched Tessa close her eyes, face screwed in concentration.

A ripple went through her, brown hair lightening to pale blonde, gray eyes turning a familiar blue, her tall stature shrinking to the delicate build of a shorter and slighter woman. Tessa's features seemed to melt and reform until they settled, and Kit felt a shock of recognition pass through him as he stared into a face that looked so much like his own. 

"Mom," Kit whispered in wonder. His throat felt drier than the deserts of Los Angeles in the height of summer. This person in front of him was his mother - he could scarcely believe it. Kit stood up in a daze and stumbled towards her.

"Kit." The voice that came out was not Tessa's voice. It didn't have that slightly olden quality that Tessa's and Jem's voice sometimes had. It had a Los Angeles accent. It was the voice he remembered singing softly to him when he was a baby.

"Mom," he said again, louder. He reached out towards her with shaking hands. She looked so alive, so familiar yet so unfamiliar.

His mom opened her arms out for him and Kit stepped into her embrace, her bony arms wrapping around him tightly. A comforting feeling settled over him like a baby blanket, soothing his thundering heart. He was much taller than his mom, he realised, which should not have come as a shock, but somehow it still surprised him. Tessa was not that much shorter than him, but then again Tessa was considered quite tall. 

Kit closed his eyes and hugged his mom tightly. He tried not to cry at how strange it was.

"Oh, Kit," she murmured. "My beautiful boy." She reached up and touched his face. His face that was almost a carbon copy of hers. "I'm so sorry I didn't get to see you grow up."

He stared at her, trying to memorise every part of her. The exact shade of her hair, the tiny differences in their facial structure, the shape of her hands, the pitch of her voice.

"Mom, why did you have to leave? Dad, he- he-" Kit's voice broke, and he couldn't finish his sentence. His mind was a swirling mess, all the longing for something he had never known rushing in at once.

"Your father loved you so much," she said fiercely. "Me too. So, so much."

Kit nodded forlornly. "Me too. Dad, and you-" He choked up. "I didn't even know you and you're both dead," he finished bitterly.

"Oh Kit, my Kit." She stroked his hair gently and Kit suddenly remembered this same hand brushing his hair away from his face when he was sick, smoothing down fine golden hair back when he had only just begun to open his eyes. "The story that I love you, it has no end," she sang softly, her voice trembling.

This song. This was the song he kept hearing, sung in a woman's lilting voice. The song that kept haunting him as he tried to figure out who it was, because Johnny Rook was not the lullaby-singing kind of dad. The song that was one of the few things he remembered about his mother. Something in Kit just broke, floodgates opening, and suddenly his face was wet with tears, stinging his eyes, a hint of salt filling his mouth. He tried to blink them away but more just kept welling up.

There were tears running down her face too, but she only held him closer, patting his back with her small hand. His dad had never been good with tears, and whenever he cried, his dad had always patted him awkwardly on the arm, unsure of what to do with a sobbing child.

"Mom," Kit hiccupped, shoulders shaking as he clung to her. They sank to the floor crying. He wished his mother was alive. He wished his father was alive. He wished he had grown up with both of them. He wished this was real.

But it wasn't real, and the pain and longing was too much to bear.

"Tessa, Change back. Change back," he sobbed. "Tessa, please, Change back." His heart ached and his voice shook and he hated himself for wanting this, hated Tessa for giving him an impossible dream, hated his dad for dying and, most of all, he hated his mom for leaving before he could know her.

He was still holding onto her as the illusion broke and Tessa turned back into herself. She was crying too, gray eyes bright with tears as they spilled over and rolled down her cheeks. "I'm so sorry, Kit. I'm so sorry," she was saying.

Kit could barely hear her. "I hate you, I hate you." He couldn't recognise the broken sound of his own voice.

"She loved you, more than anything in the world," Tessa said softly. "I felt it. You were her everything." She touched his hair in the same way she had done when she was his mother.

Kit recoiled, and jerked his head into a nod. "Sorry Tessa, can I be alone right now?"

Tessa smiled sadly. Kit knew Tessa understood the painful vulnerability of having one's heart ripped out all too well. "We'll be right here for you, when you're ready." Slowly, she got up and walked unsteadily out of the room. Concern was written into the lines of her face but she said nothing else as she left Kit to collect himself. He breathed a small sigh, immensely grateful for her consideration.

Kit curled up on the floor, welcoming the coldness of the kitchen tiles, and let it numb away his anguish.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! <3
> 
> also 来吧，小宝贝，爸爸带你去花园玩，好不好? basically is jem saying let's go play in the garden, okay? 小宝贝= my little treasure, or something like that.
> 
> also why do i keep writing scenarios that i hope will never happen? i must really love heartbreak (:


End file.
